Peirithoos

Mitchell‐Boyask, Robin

doi:10.1002/9781444350302.wbhe1085

Cited by 1 publication

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“…In the opening scene of Sophocles' Oedipus the King the word for plague is also introduced late, in line 28, where we hear of λοιμὸς ἔχθιστος, "most abominable plague." 45 Here, the clues about the nature of the disease provided in the preceding lines are much less specific than in the opening of the Iliad.…”

Section: Metonymymentioning

confidence: 95%

“…When the speaker of Against Aristogeiton accuses his opponent as "the plague," then, this has all the seriousness of an accusation of pollution, but it also shows the ease with which religious language is activated in fourth-century speeches in public trials. 12 To assess how bold is such a metaphor (and its combination with scapegoating), we need to consider not only "the tendency … in fifth-century writers to avoid the word loimos," 13 but also the complexities around the personification of the plague in earlier literature. What does the plague look like before the (real or imagined) law courts of the fourth century?…”

Section: Personificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The plague is often identified as "the disease" (ἡ νόσος). But to claim that "loimos and nosos are completely interchangeable," as it has been argued in relation to Thucydides, 44 is to obscure the workings and effects of the interplay between the two words. In the Iliad, the plague is introduced proleptically only as nosos (νοῦσον, 10), but it is immediately qualified as an epidemic through the magnitude of its impact (κακήν, "evil," 10), its spreading across the army (ἀνὰ στρατὸν, "throughout the army," 10), and its duration (ὀλέκοντο, "were perishing," 11).…”

Section: Metonymymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…86 In Thucydides too, the plague destroys Athens from within the walls while the Spartans and their allies destroy the land outside the walls (ἀνθρώπων τ᾿ ἔνδον θνησκόντων [2.54.2] καὶ γῆς ἔξω δῃουμένης, 2.54. [1][2]. Later in book 2, Thucydides' Pericles invites his fellow-Athenians "to bear with resignation what comes from the gods and with fortitude the hardships that come from the enemy" (φέρειν δὲ χρὴ τά τε δαιμόνια ἀναγκαίως τά τε ἀπὸ τῶν πολεμίων ἀνδρείως, 2.64.2), and in book 6 Nicias speaks of the Athenians' recovery "from a great disease and war" (ἀπὸ νόσου μεγάλης καὶ πολέμου, 6.12.1), with his wording echoed by the narrator himself (ἀπὸ τῆς νόσου καὶ τοῦ … πολέμου, 6.26.1).…”

Section: Analogymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Naming the Plague in Homer, Sophocles, and Thucydides

Michelakis¹

2019

American Journal of Philology

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This article focuses on the language used to describe the plague, and more specifically on the oscillation of its vocabulary between literal and figurative meaning, in Homer's Iliad (1.1-487), Sophocles' Oedipus the King (1-215), and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (esp. 2.47.3-2.54). It is argued that the plague spreads in the language of the three narratives by association or contiguity, exploiting existing links with related words, most notably the broader vocabulary of disease and calamity, but it also spreads by analogy, comparison, or similarity, establishing links with other domains such as famine, blight, war and destruction.The Greek word for the plague, λοιμός, is relatively absent from the surviving texts of the archaic and classical periods. It is used once in Homer, once in Hesiod, three times in tragedy and in Herodotus, four times in Thucydides and Plato, and once in Demosthenes and Aeschines. 1 Robin Mitchell-Boyask may well be right that superstition plays a role in this, especially for the period following the great plague of Athens of the early 420s. 2 In the context of this article, however, I am more interested in the broader consequences of the phenomenon and in the possibilities it opens up for how the plague can be transmitted in poetic and historical narrative. If the plague is identified through other words and phrases that shift within and across a wide range of registers and blur the distinction between the literal and the figurative, such associations exemplify something fundamental about how pestilence spreads linguistically: it spreads not by maintaining an essence and an identity (be it biological, metaphysical, cognitive, or semantic) but through a dynamic process based on the exploitation of its linguistic hosts and on its own ability to adapt. It spreads by association or contiguity, Clarke, Michael. 1995. "The Wisdom of Thales and the Problem of the Word ΙΕΡΟΣ."

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Section: Metonymymentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Personificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Metonymymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analogymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations